Christian History Home > Issue 51 > Fine-Tuning the Incarnation
Fine-Tuning the Incarnation
A lot of mistakes were made before the church figured out how best to describe Jesus Christ.
Bruce L. Shelley | posted 7/01/1996 12:00AM
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Objections to Apollinarianism arose quickly. Does the Gospels' picture of Jesus not depict a normal human psychology, showing Christ with a human mind and human emotions? And if the Word displaced the rational human soul, with its powers of choice and sin, how could Christ be fully human, and therefore, how could human beings be fully redeemed? If the Word did not unite full humanity with himself, then how can we hope to be saved?
In this atmosphere, the Council of Constantinople (381) effectively silenced the Apollinarian teaching. It simply was not an adequate description of the Incarnation.
Mother of God?
The second "heresy" was associated with the name Nestorius, a famous preacher at Antioch, who in 428 was appointed archbishop of Constantinople. In the shadow of the imperial palace, Nestorius proved to be a devout, well-meaning monk but a strident, tactless preacher. On the streets, his persecuting temper earned him a nickname, "Firebrand." Shortly after assuming his duties in the capital, he launched a sermonic attack against the popular term Theotokos, or "God-bearer," as a title for the Virgin Mary. Ordinary church folk assumed that their new preacher regarded the Savior as an inspired man, nothing more.
In point of fact, Nestorius meant nothing of the sort. He thought the term might suggest that the babe born of Mary was not human but God only, which he felt was another form of the Apollinarian heresy. He suggested as an alternative the title Christotokos, "Mother of Christ." But his unguarded rhetoric made some think he believed Christ not only had two natures but also two wills, that there were two Christs so to speak, one divine, one human, existing in the one body. Since this appeared to deny the Gospels' portrait of Jesus as an integrated individual, controversy filled the air; charges sounded from pulpits. Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, called on Nestorius to recant.
To settle the uproar, the emperor adopted the time-honored policy of summoning a general council. It met at Ephesus in the summer of 431. Nestorius refused to attend, but the emperor, who had once supported Nestorius, acceded to Cyril's demands and deposed the firebrand. Repudiated, Nestorius found himself exiled to his former monastery at Antioch even as a new bishop assumed his pulpit in Constantinople. Nestorius's followers were also expelled from the church and soon established the Nestorian Syrian churches of the Middle and Far East, some of which survive to this day.
Nestorius lived until late in 451, long enough to welcome Pope Leo's doctrinal epistle (or "Tome") and the "definition" of orthodoxy announced at the Council of Chalcedon. He received the council's conclusions as his own. "I have endured the torment of my life," he said just before dying on the borders of the empire. "Every day I beseech God to accomplish my dissolution, whose eyes have seen the salvation of God."
Fine words from a maligned man. But the Nestorian controversy did serve one lofty purpose. The more extreme members of the Antioch school made clear the need to talk about Christ's deity and humanity in convincing terms, especially terms describing the union of both in a single person.
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